VIEWPOINT | 60 percent approval threshold essential for protecting Constitution

Guest column by South Dakota Rep. John Hughes, R-Sioux Falls (District 13)

Rep. John Hughes

Why is a 60 percent approval threshold for amending our South Dakota Constitution needed, instead of the current simple majority of 50 percent + 1 vote?

Our Constitution is more than a statute. It is a contract between the state itself and the people that assures us that if we live here, raise our families here, worship here, and conduct our vocations here, we can count on certain core values remaining constant. Our Constitution must be protected from the transient political influences and whims of a bare majority.

Continuing to allow initiated amendments to our Constitution by a simple majority guarantees that NO individual rights are safe from the unpredictable desires of whatever is popularized at the time (as seen by recent efforts to amend our Constitution to create open primaries and unlimited abortion on demand). A Constitution that is easily amended cannot guarantee long-term protections for our citizens.

How we are governed and what is guaranteed to us should be far more constant and accompanied by a greater measure of permanence and reliability than requiring a simple majority to constantly change the rules.  This is especially true today, when unregulated and legally immune social media and the internet bombard us with information, both true and false, in efforts calculated to sway a simple majority.

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